the meek will inherit
by midnightluck
Summary: Wally West does not believe in magic.


__All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners (Cartoon Network, Mark Schwahn). For a prompt on YJ_Anon_Meme.__

__**WARNING: **Character death.  
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><p>Robin's voice echoed down the tunnel. "It's Klarion, guys, watch out!"<p>

"I told you! It's Klarion—bum Bum BUM—The Witch Boy! Get my name right!" The tantrum would almost be cute if it weren't accompanied by glowy balls of death.

Superboy and M'gann went up, and Wally and Kaldur came up the sides. Artemis kept to the back, covering them with her arrows.

They charged up the sewer tunnel, following the echo of splashes and yells, and came to a three-way split. Something was wrong, or maybe Klarion had done something, because there were sounds and flashes of light from all the tunnels.

"M'gann?" Kaldur asked, and she raised a hand to her head, frowning.

"I can't get a lock," she said. "Whatever Klarion did put up mirror images. I can't tell which Robin is real."

"Split up," Kaldur barked, before anyone could ask. "Superboy, Artemis, left; Wally, M'gann, right!"

He took off down the middle one, and was swallowed up by the dark. The four took an extra second to exchange glances, and they head down their designated tunnels.

Wally and M'gann speed down their path, him running and her flying. He wanted to make a comment about what a girl like her was doing in a place like this, but he knew that now was professional time, not playtime.

There were voices and sounds up ahead, and they rounded the corner to see Robin and Klarion going at it. Wally didn't hesitate, sped up, and tore through Klarion.

Literally, through. He just skidded right along through the water, leaving shards of a shattered image in his wake.

Unable to stop quite in time, he slid right into a hole on the tunnel floor. His shin stopped, but he kept sliding, and there was a sickening _popcrunch_ noise.

"Wally," M'gann said, alarmed. She flew down to him. "Wally, are you okay?"

Worry didn't look right on a face that pretty, so he smiled through the pain and said, "Yeah, yeah, I'm—Look out!"

Klarion had pirouetted into being behind her, and threw one of his explody-death-balls at them. Wally tried to push M'gann out of the way, but he had no leverage, and she knew that moving would leave him exposed, so she wouldn't go, and—

-and the world slowed, narrowing to the smirk on Klarion's face, and the way he spun right back out of sight, and the surprised look on M'gann's face and the soft, "_Oh_," right in his ear.

Her weight slumped down on his shoulders, and he bit back a scream as it put pressure on his bad leg.

"Hey," he said, falling over more than sitting down, but still managing to get her more or less on his lap. "Hey, Megan, are you all right? Come on, answer me!"

She gasped, and rolled her head to the side, but didn't open her eyes. "Ow," she said weakly, clutching her hands to her stomach.

"Hey, hey! Let me see those pretty eyes of yours, come on, Megan, look at me!"

And she did, kind of. Her head rolled over to rest on his arm, and she moved her hands enough to let him see the blood welling up from her abdomen. How that even worked, he had no idea, but it wasn't as important as his teammate right now.

"Robin!" he screamed down the tunnel. "Conner! Kaldur! Artemis! _Robin!_"

"Stop it," she gasped. "They can't hear you."

"Sure they can. The tunnels conduct echoes really well, and there's nothing to stop them from hearing."

She took a deep breath, and said, "The magic will get in the way. I can't even reach them mind-to-mind."

Wally said automatically, "There's no such thing as magic."

She smiled, tried to move, gasped and fell back. "Ow, " she managed. "Talk to me. Distract me, please? Just talk about, about anything."

"I don't know!" Wally said frantically. "Ask me a question! Uh, I could recite the Periodic table. Or, um—"

"Tell me—" but M'gann broke off to cough, bringing up blood. "Tell me why...you don't believe in magic. I was always...curious about that."

"You know, I used to." Wally said, a little desperately. "Well, no. I used to want to believe. But then I grew up."

"In a world where magic exists, things could go right, you know? Like, the good people wouldn't have to die, and all the bad guys would go to jail every time, and stay there. And no one would ever have to cry.

"If there was magic, then it'd be easy to heal wounds. Like these. It would be easy to fix broken hearts and shattered minds. Life could be perfect, if there was magic.

"But it isn't, and it can't be, and magic wouldn't make a blind bit of difference anyway, because this world takes all the happy, all the joy, all the precious little moments, and it buries them and grinds them into the dust and it makes you fall and kicks you in the side until you can't breathe and all you can do is bite your lip and remind yourself that you're too strong to cry. So then you get back up, even if you can feel the broken ribs grinding under your skin, and there just isn't any magic that can heal that and not leave a scar. But you know that.

"I want to believe in magic, god knows I do. But life doesn't work that way." This probably wasn't what she needed to hear right then, but it was a sore spot, and it was "magic" that had got her bleeding out in his arms, ad he wasn't inclined to be lenient. His leg was still immovable, and she was bleeding, and it hurt.

"Life is pain, okay? That's the way the world works."

M'gann smiled, or tried to. It was not pretty. "Hey," she said, and coughed up more blood and bile, and gasped and was having trouble getting enough air. "Hey, that's not it."

"Sure it is," Wally said, because anything to keep her here and concentrated was good.

"No," she said. "Magic is...is our hope, right? We create our own magic, see?"

"Okay, no, stop talking, you're just making it worse," Wally exclaimed, trying to staunch the flow from her stomach. He wished he could pass off his super-healing to her, or something, anything, because M'gann was too nice, too pretty, too _good_ to die, especially here, especially like this.

"You just have to look," she whispered, and he leaned down to catch the words. "There is magic, Wally, and—"

But she didn't finish the words, and her head lolled back over his arm, and he just wanted to scream.

She was too good for this world. Too good for him.

"Robin!" he screamed again, and "Kaldur!" But no one came, and his throat was raw and scratched up from not crying, and his voice came out raspy, but he still held her, rocked her, hoped she wasn't really dead, hoped—

_—hope is magic; magic is everywhere—_

—and if it would bring her back, he would believe. He'd try, he would, but _the world doesn't work that way_. "It isn't fair," he whispered. "It should have been me; it isn't fair—"

_—you just have to hope; there is magic in the world—_

He smoothed his hand over her cold, wet hair again and again, cold beyond measure but unable to feel it, or the tears running down his face. He should move, get her body up to one of the side ledges, but it hurt to think about it, and maybe if he just sat here and hoped hard enough, maybe there would be magic, just for her, because she deserved it.

But it didn't happen, and he laughed, laughed until he hiccuped and sobbed, and told her, "You were wrong, I guess. There is not magic in this world." He pulled her in closer, pressing his cold cheek to her colder one.

_—there is magic in the world—_

"No. At least, not today there isn't."


End file.
